The Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed by the Ustaše - a Croatian fascist, racist, ultra-nationalist and terrorist organization - on 10 April 1941. Within the new state lived approximately 40,000 Jews, only 9,000 of whom would ultimately survive the war.[1]

Already prior to the war the Ustaše forged close ties to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In 1933 the Ustaše presented "The Seventeen Principles", which proclaimed the uniqueness of the Croatian nation, promoted collective rights over individual rights, and declared that people who were not Croat by race and blood, would be excluded from political life. In 1936, the Ustaše leader, Ante Pavelić, wrote in "The Croat Question":

″Today, practically all finance and nearly all commerce in Croatia is in Jewish hands. This became possible only through the support of the state, which thereby seeks, on one hand, to strengthen the pro-Serbian Jews, and on the other, to weaken Croat national strength; the Jews celebrated the establishment of the so-called Yugoslav state with great joy, because a national Croatia could never be as useful to them as a multi-national Yugoslavia; for in national chaos lies the power of the Jews... In fact, as the Jews had foreseen, Yugoslavia became, in consequence of the corruption of official life in Serbia, a true Eldorado of Jewry...The entire press in Croatia is also in Jewish-masonic hands…" [2]

The main race laws in the Independent State of Croatia were adopted and signed by the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić on 30 April 1941: the "Legal Decree on Racial Origins" (Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti) and the "Legal Decree on the Protection of Aryan Blood and the Honour of the Croatian People" (Zakonska odredba o zaštiti arijske krvi i časti hrvatskog naroda);[3] the "Legal Decree on the Nationalization of the Property of Jews and Jewish Companies" was declared on 10 October 1941.

Actions against Jews began immediately after the Independent State of Croatia was founded. On 10–11 April 1941 a group of prominent Jews in Zagreb was arrested by the Ustaše and held for ransom. On 13 April the same was done in Osijek, where Ustaše and Volksdeutscher mobs destroyed the synagogue and Jewish graveyard;[4] this procedure was repeated in 1941 and 1942 several times with groups of Jews.

The Ustaše immediately initiated intensive anti-Semitic propaganda. A day after the signing of the main race laws on 30 April 1941, the newspaper of the Ustaše movement, Hrvatski narod (Croatian Nation), published across its entire front page: "The Blood and Honor of the Croatian people protected by special provisions".[5]

Two days later, the newspaper Novi list concluded that Croatians must "be more alert than any other ethnic group to protect their racial purity, ... We need to keep our blood clean of the Jews"; the newspaper also wrote that Jews are synonymous with "treachery, cheating, greed, immorality and foreigness", and therefore "wide swaths of the Croatian people always despised the Jews and felt towards them natural revulsion".[5]Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia) added that according to the Talmud, "this toxic. hot well-spring of Jewish wickedness and malice, the Jew is even free to kill Gentiles".[5]

One of the main claims of Ustaše propaganda was that the Jews have always been against an independent Croatian state and against the Croatian people. In April 1941 the newspaper Hrvatski narod (The Croatian People) accused Jews of being responsible for the "many failures and misfortunes of so many Croatian people", which led the Poglavnik [the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelic] to "eradicate these evils".[5] A Spremnost article stated that the Ustaša movement defines "Judaism as one of the greatest enemies of the people".[5]

Some in the Catholic Church joined the anti-Semitic propaganda, thus the Catholic Bishop of Sarajevo, Ivan Šarić, published in his diocesan newspaper that "the movement to free the world of Jews, represents the movement for the restoration of human dignity. Omniscient and omnipotent God is behind this movement ",[6] and in July 1941, the Franciscan priest, Dionysius Juričev, in Novi list wrote that "it is no longer a sin to kill a seven year-old child".[7]

Already in April 1941 the Ustaše established the concentration camps Danica[8] (near Koprivnica), Kruščica concentration camp near Travnik[9] and Kerestinec, where along with communists and other political opponents, the Ustaše imprisoned Jews.

In May 1941, the Ustaše rounded up 165 Jewish youth in Zagreb, ages 17–25, most of them members of the Jewish sports club Makabi, and sent them to the Danica concentration camp (all but 3 were killed by the Ustaše).[10]

In May and June the Ustaše established new camps, primarily for Jews who came to Croatia as refugees from Germany and countries which Germany had previously occupied, and some of these were quickly killed; also arrested and sent to the Ustaše camps were larger groups of Jews from Zagreb (June 22), Bihac (June 24), Karlovac (June 27), Sarajevo, Varaždin, Bjelovar, etc.[citation needed]

On 8 July 1941 the Ustaše ordered that all arrested Jews be sent to Gospić, from where they took the victims to death camps Jadovno on Velebit, and Slano on the island of Pag,[11] where they carried out mass executions; the historian Paul Mojzes lists 1,998 Jews, 38,010 Serbs, and 88 Croats killed at Jadovno and related execution grounds,[12] among them 1,000 children.

Other sources generally offer a range of 10,000–68,000 deaths at the Jadovno system of camps, with estimates of the number of Jewish deaths ranging from several hundred[12] to 2,500–2,800.[13]

The Jasenovac Memorial site lists the individual names of 83,145 victims, including 13,116 Jews, 16,173 Roma, 47,627 Serbs, 4,255 Croats, 1,128 Bosnian Muslims,[17] etc. Of the total 83,145 named Jasenovac victims, 20,101 were children under the age of 12, and 23,474 were women.[17]

In April 1942, the Jews of Osijek were forced to build a "Jewish settlement" at Tenja, into which they were herded along with Jews from the surrounding region. Approximately 3,000 Jews were moved to Tenja in June and July 1942.[3] From Tenja, 200 Jews were transported to the Jasenovac concentration camp and 2,800 Jews were transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.[3]

In February 1942 the Ustaše Interior Minister, Andrija Artuković, in a speech to the Croatian Parliament declared that:

"The Independent State of Croatia through its decisive action has solved the so-called Jewish question ... This necessary cleansing procedure finds its justification not only from a moral, religious and social point of view, but also from the national-political point of view: it is international Jewry associated with international communism and Freemasonry, that sought and still seeks to destroy the Croatian people".[20] The speech was accompanied by shouts of approval -" yes! - from the parliamentary benches.[20]

After the capitulation of Italy on 8 September 1943, Nazi Germany annexed the Croat-populated Italian provinces of Pula and Rijeka into its Operational Zone Adriatic Coast. On 25 January 1944, the Germans demolished the Jewish synagogue in Rijeka;[24] the region of Međimurje had been annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary in 1941. In April 1944, the Jews of Međimurje were taken to a camp in Nagykanizsa where they were held until their transport to Auschwitz. An estimated 540 Međimurje Jews were murdered at Auschwitz, while 29 were murdered at Jasenovac.[25]

Many historians describe the Ustasha regime's mass killings of Serbs as meeting the definition of genocide;[26][27][28][29][30] some racist laws, brought from Germany, in addition to Jews and Roma, were applied to the Serbs. Vladimir Žerjavić estimates that 322,000 Serbs were killed in the Independent State of Croatia, out of a total population of 1.8 million Serbs. Thus one in six Serbs were killed, which represents the highest percentage killed in Europe, after the Jews and Roma. Of these Žerjavić estimates that about 78,000 Serbs were killed at Jasenovac and other Ustasha camps. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs were killed in the NDH.

The Ustasha regime launched the persecution of the Roma in May 1942. Whole families were arrested and transported to the Jasenovac concentration camp, where they were immediately, or within a few months, killed. Estimates of the number of victims vary from 16,000 (this figure is given Vladimir Žerjavić) to 40,000; the Jasenovac Memorial at Jasenovac, Croatia lists the names of 16,173 Roma killed at that concentration camp. Due to their way of life, many more victims are probably unrecorded; the German historian Alexander Korb and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., both estimate at least 25,000 casualties among the Roma, which represents nearly the total Roma population in the Independent State of Croatia.

On 5 May 1945, the Legal Decree on the Equalization of Members of the NDH Based on Racial Origin (Zakonska odredba o izjednačavanju pripadnika NDH s obzirom na rasnu pripadnost) was declared which repealed the racial laws enacted over the course of the war.[citation needed]

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum lists the following number of victims in the Independent State of Croatia:

32,000 Jews,[15] with 12,000 to 20,000 Jews killed at the Jasenovac system of camps[31]

At least 25,000 Roma, or virtually the entire Roma population in the Independent State of Croatia[31]

Between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs, most killed by the Ustasha authorities[31]

Slavko Goldstein estimates that approximately 30,000 Jews were killed from the Independent State of Croatia, with approximately 12,790 of those killed in Croatia. Vladimir Žerjavić's demographics research produced an estimate of 25,800 to 26,700 Jewish victims, of which he estimates that 19,000 were killed by the Ustasha in Croatia and Bosnia, and the rest abroad.[32]

The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement known as Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist, racist and terrorist organization, active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II, they are variously known in English as the Ustaše, Ustashi, Ustahis, or Ustashas. This variance stems from the fact that Ustaše is the plural form of Ustaša in the Serbo-Croatian language; the ideology of the movement was a blend of Roman Catholicism and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span the Drina River and extend to the border of Belgrade; the movement emphasized the need for a racially "pure" Croatia and promoted genocide against Serbs and Romani people, persecution of anti-fascist or dissidentCroats and Bosniaks. The Ustaše viewed the Bosniaks as "Muslim Croats," and as a result, Bosniaks were not persecuted on the basis of race. Fiercely Roman Catholic, the Ustaše espoused Roman Catholicism and Islam as the religions of the Croats and Bosniaks and condemned Orthodox Christianity, the main religion of the Serbs. Roman Catholicism was identified with Croatian nationalism, while Islam, which had a large following in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was praised by the Ustaše as the religion that "keeps true the blood of Croats."When it was founded in 1930, it was a nationalist organization that sought to create an independent Croatian state.

When the Ustaše came to power in the NDH, a quasi-protectorate established by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during World War II, its military wings became the Army of the Independent State of Croatia and the Ustaše militia. However the Ustaše never received massive support; the movement functioned as a terrorist organization before World War II but in April 1941, they were appointed to rule a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia, described as both an Italian-German quasi-protectorate, as a puppet state of Nazi Germany. The word ustaša is derived from the intransitive verb ustati. "Pučki-ustaša" was a military rank in the Imperial Croatian Home Guard. The same term was the name of Croatian third-class infantry regiments during World War One 1914–1918. Another variation of the word ustati is a rebel; the name ustaša did not have fascist connotations during their early years in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as the term "ustat" was itself used in Herzegovina to denote the insurgents from the Herzegovinian rebellion of 1875.

The full original name of the organization appeared in April 1931 as the Ustaša – Hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija or UHRO. In English, Ustashe and Ustashi are used for the movement or its members. One of the major ideological influences on the Croatian nationalism of the Ustaše was 19th century Croatian activist Ante Starčević, an advocate of Croatian unity and independence, both anti-Habsburg and anti-Serbian in outlook, he envisioned the creation of a Greater Croatia that would include territories inhabited by Bosniaks and Slovenes, considering Bosniaks and Serbs to be Croats, converted to Islam and Orthodox Christianity, while considering the Slovenes to be "mountain Croats". Starčević argued that the large Serb presence in territories claimed by a Greater Croatia was the result of recent settlement, encouraged by Habsburg rulers, the influx of groups like Vlachs who took up Orthodox Christianity and identified themselves as Serbs. Starčević admired Bosniaks because in his view they were Croats who had adopted Islam in order to preserve the economic and political autonomy of Bosnia and Croatia under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ustaše used Starčević's theories to promote the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia and recognized Croatia as having two major ethnocultural components: Catholics and Muslims. The Ustaše sought to represent Starčević as being connected to their views; the Ustaše promoted the theories of Dr Milan Šufflay, believed to have claimed that Croatia had been "one of the strongest ramparts of Western civilization for many centuries", which he claimed had been lost through its union with Serbia when the nation of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918. Šufflay was killed in Zagreb in 1931 by government supporters. The Ustaše accepted the 1935 thesis by a Franciscanfriar, Father Krunoslav Draganović, who claimed that many Catholics in southern Herzegovina had been converted to Orthodox Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to justify a policy of forcible conversion of Orthodox Christians in the area to Catholicism; the Ustaše were influenced by Nazism and fascism. Pavelić's position of Poglavnik was based on the similar positions of Duce held by Benito Mussolini and Führer held by Adolf Hitler.

The Ustaše, like fascists, promoted a corporatist economy. Pavelić and the Ustaše were allowed sanctuary in Italy by Mussolini after being exiled from Yugoslavia. Pavelić had been in negotiations with Fascist Italy since 1927 that included advocating a territory-for-sovereignty swap in which he would tolerate Italy annexing its claimed territory in Dalmatia in exchange for Italy supporting the sovereignty of an independent Cr

The Jadovno concentration camp was a concentration and extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. Commanded by JucoRukavina, it was the first of twenty-six concentration camps in the NDH during the war. Established in a secluded area about 20 kilometres from the town of Gospić, it held thousands of Serbs and Jews over a period of 122 days from May to August 1941. Inmates were killed by being pushed into deep ravines located near the camp. Estimates of the number of deaths at Jadovno range from 10,000 to 68,000 Serbs; the camp was closed on 21 August 1941, the area where it was located was handed over to the Kingdom of Italy and became part of Italian Zones II and III. Jadvono was replaced by the greater sized Jasenovac concentration camp and its extermination facilities; the camp site remained unexplored after the war due to the depth of the gorges where bodies were disposed and the fact that some of them had been filled with concrete by Yugoslavia's Communist authorities.

Additional sites containing the skeletal remains of camp victims were uncovered in the 1980s. Commemoration ceremonies honouring the victims of the camp have been organized by the Serb National Council, the Jewish community in Croatia, local anti-fascists since 2009, 24 June has since been designated as a "Day of Remembrance of the Jadovno Camp" in Croatia. A monument commemorating those killed in the camp was constructed in 1975 and stood for fifteen years before being removed in 1990. A replica of the original monument was constructed and dedicated in 2010, but disappeared within twenty-four hours of its inauguration. On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was defeated. After the invasion, the extreme Croat nationalist and fascistAnte Pavelić, in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed Poglavnik of an Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia; the NDH combined most of modern Croatia, all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate".

NDH authorities, led by the Ustašemilitia implemented genocidal policies against the Serb and Romani populations living in the new state. Aiming to exterminate the entire Serb population of the NDH, the Ustaše sought to murder one-third of Serbs, convert one-third to Roman Catholicism, force the rest from the country. A series of massacres were committed by the Ustaše, the degree of cruelty with which the Serb population was persecuted shocked the Germans; the Cyrillic script was banned, Orthodox Christian church schools were closed, Serbs were ordered to wear identifying armbands. Similar measures were enacted against Jews, who were required to wear a yellow armband with a black-on-yellow Star of David for identification; these armbands bore the word "Jew" in two languages: Croatian. Located in a secluded area about 20 kilometres from the town of Gospić, the Jadovno camp was formed during the early stages of the persecution of Serbs in the NDH and was placed under the command of the Ustaša Juco Rukavina.

Intended as an extermination camp, it was established between 11 and 15 April 1941 and was the first of twenty-six concentration camps located in the NDH during the war. Most inmates at Ustaše camps – including Jadovno – were Croatian Serbs. Other victims included anti-Ustaše Croats. Notable Jadovno inmates included the Croatian Jewish mayor of Koprivnica, Ivica Hiršl, the Croatian Jewish Communist Aleksandar Savić; the Ustaše trucked several hundred detainees to a site intended exclusively for extermination near Gospić. Located on Mount Velebit, the town contained gorges – some up to 91.5 metres deep – that were used as dumping grounds. The Jadovno camp itself was surrounded by such abysses which were difficult to gain access to and characteristic of the karstic mountain range; the camp itself acted as a "way station" en route to these pits. Here, prisoners had to work the entire day with no food until exhaustion; the nearest pit to the camp was the Šaran pit, located 1 kilometre away, while the pit where inmates were executed and dumped was 5 kilometres from the camp.

Here, inmates were bound together in a line and the first few victims were murdered with rifle butts or other objects. Afterwards, an entire row of inmates were pushed into the ravine. In some cases, inmates were killed by gunfire, as well as with knives and blunt objects. Once inmates were thrown into the ravine, hand grenades were hurtled inside in order to kill off the victims. Dogs would be thrown in to feed on the wounded and the dead; the pits in the vicinity of the camp were filled with the bodies of Jewish and Serb inmates. However, killings were not confined to these two groups, the bodies of some Croats and Roma were disposed of in this fashion as well. By the end of June, the Ustaše transferred several hundred Jewish families from Zagreb to Jadovno. Afterwards, the camp was visited by Ustaše commander Vjekoslav Luburić, who opened his visit by cutting the throat of a two-year-old Jewish child. Luburić forced a camp guard to murder and squash the skull of a second child with his foot.

The last group of inmates at Jadovno were killed with machine guns. The camp was closed on 21 August 1941, the remaining Croat inmates were transferred to other NDH-controlled camps, while the remaining Serbs and Jews were murdered. Work on the replacement Jasenovac concentration camp started in the same month; the area in which the Jadovno camp was located was handed over to the Italians and bec

In the early 9th century AD, Syrmia was part of the Slavic state of Pannonian Croatia. The ruler, Prince Ljudevit Posavski lost control to the Franks. In 827 AD the Bulgars returned and continued to rule after a peace treaty in 845 AD. In the 11th century, the ruler of Syrmia was vassal of the Bulgarian emperor, Samuil. There had been Bulgar resistance to Byantine rule; this collapsed and Sermon, who refused to capitulate was captured and killed by Constantine Diogenes. A new but short lived area of governance named the Thema of Sirmium was established, it included the region of Syrmia. In the 12th century, the region was controlled by the Kingdom of Hungary. On 3 March 1229, the acquisition of Syrmia was confirmed by Papal bull. Pope Gregory IX wrote, " soror…regis Ungarie terram…ulterior Sirmia". In 1231, The Duke of Syrmia was Giletus. In the 1200s, the territory around Syrmia was divided into two counties: Syrmia in the east and Vukovar in the west. In the 13th century, between 1282 and 1316, Syrmia was ruled by Stefan Dragutin of Serbia.

He briefly accepted the throne due to pressure from Victor Emmanuel III and was titled Tomislav II of Croatia, but never moved from Italy to reside in Croatia. From the signing of the Treaties of Rome on 18 May 1941 until the Italian capitulation on 8 September 1943, the state was a territorial condominium of Germany and Italy. In its judgement in the Hostages Trial, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal concluded that NDH was not a sovereign state. According to the Tribunal, "Croatia was at all times here involved an occupied country". In 1942, Germany suggested Italy take military control of all of Croatia out of a desire to redirect German troops from Croatia to the Eastern Front. Italy however rejected the offer as it did not believe that it could handle the unstable situation in the Balkans alone. After the ousting of Mussolini and the Kingdom of Italy's armistice with the Allies, the NDH on 10 September 1943 declared that the Treaties of Rome were null and void and annexed the portion of Dalmatia, ceded to Italy.

The NDH attempted to annex Zara, a recognized territory of Italy since 1919 but long an object of Croatian irredentism, but Germany did not allow it. Geographically, the NDH encompassed most of modern-day Croatia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of modern-day Serbia, a small portion of modern-day Slovenia in the Municipality of Brežice, it bordered the Third Reich to the north-west, Kingdom of Hungary to the north-east, Serbian administration to the east, Montenegro to the south-east and Italy along its coastal area. The exact borders of the Independent State of Croatia were unclear. One month after its formation, significant areas of Croat-populated territory were ceded to its Axis allies, the Kingdoms of Hungary and Italy. On 13 May 1941, the NDH government signed an agreement with Nazi Germany which demarcated their borders. On 19 May the Rome contracts were signed by diplomats of the Italy. Large parts of Croatian lands were occupied by Italy, including most of Dalmatia, nearly all the Adriatic islands, some smaller areas such as the Boka Kotorska bay, parts of the Croatian Littoral and Gorski kotar areas.

On 7 June the NDH government issued a decree. On 27 October the NDH and Italy reached an agreement on the Independent State of Croatia's border with Montenegro. On 8 September 1943, Italy capitulated and the NDH considered the Rome contracts to be void, along with the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920 which had given ItalyIstria and Zara. German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop approved the NDH acquisition of the Dalmatian territories gained by Italy at the time of the Rome contracts. By now, most such territory was controlled by the Yugoslav Partisans, since the ceding of those areas had made them anti-NDH. By 11 September 1943, NDH foreign minister Mladen Lorković received word from German consulSiegfried Kasche that the NDH should wait before moving on Istria. Germany's central government had annexed Istria and Fiume into the Operational Zone Adriatic Coast a day earlier. Međimurje and southern Baranja were annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary. NDH disputed this and continued to lay claim to both, naming the administrative province centred in Osijek as Great Parish Baranja.

This border was never legislated, although Hungary may have considered the Pacta conventa to be in effect, which delineated the two nation's borders along the Drava river. When compared to the republican borders established in the SFR Yugoslavia after the war, the NDH encompassed the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its non-Croat majority, as well as some 20 km2 of Slovenian and the whole of Syrmia; the Independent State of Croatia had four levels of administrative divisions: great parishes, districts and municipalities. At the time of i

However, on 20 August 1939, the Prince Regent permitted the Prime Minister, Dragiša Cvetković, to sign the sporazum with Vladko Maček, the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, which created a new banovina for Croatia with substantial autonomy and a much greater size, covering much of what is now Bosnia-Hercegovina, satisfying at least in part the long-standing demands of the Croats. However, the sporazum was unpopular with the Serbs when reports emerged that the prečani Serbs were being discriminated against by the authorities of the autonomous banovina; the tense international situation of August 1939 with the Danzig crisis pushing Europe to the brink of war meant the Prince Regent Paul wanted to settle one of the more debilitating internal disputes in order to made Yugoslavia more capable of surviving the coming storm. However, the sporazum with Croats came at the cost of having both Paul and Cvetković being condemned by Serbian public opinion for "selling out" to the Croats, all the more so as many Croats made it clear that they saw the banovina of Croatia as only a stepping stone towards independence.

The unpopularity of the sporazum of 1939 and with it the Cvetković government, was one of the reasons for the coup d'etat of 27 March 1941 as many Serbs believed that Peter, the son of King Alexander, would continue with his father's centralising policies when he obtained his majority. Although King Peter II and his advisors were utterly opposed to Nazi Germany, Regent-Prince Paul declared that the kingdom of Yugoslavia would join the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941. Two days King Peter, at age 17, was proclaimed of age after a British-supported coup d'état. During the bloodless coup, led by General Dušan Simović on 27 March 1941 in the name of Peter, the young king was the hero of the hour; as General Simović led his men toward the Royal Compound, surrounded by guards loyal to the Regent, Peter climbed down a drain-pipe to greet the rebels. As the Regent's guards surrendered without fighting, Simović arrived to tell Peter: “Your Majesty, I salute you as King of Yugoslavia. From this moment you will exercise your full sovereign power.”

The Luftwaffebombed Belgrade, killing between 4,000 people. Within a week, Bulgaria and Italy invaded Yugoslavia, the government was forced to surrender on 17 April. Parts of Yugoslavia were annexed by Italy, Bulgaria and Germany. In the remaining parts Croatia and Serbia, two German-controlled puppet governments were installed; as Yugoslavia collapsed, Peter fled by plane to Athens, running out of fuel and landing a British airfield in rural Greece, where locals did not at first believe that he was king of Yugoslavia. Peter left the country with the Royal Yugoslav Government's ministers following the Axis invasion; the Yugoslav king and his government ministers went to Greece en route to British-ruled Jerusalem in Palestine, Cairo in Egypt. In Athens on 16 April 1941, Peter issued a press statement saying he would fight until victory before fleeing Greece. In Jerusalem on 4 May 1941, Peter affirmed in a press statement the Sporazum of 23 August 1939, which turned Yugoslavia into a semi-federation as the basis of the post-war political system he was planning to introduce once his nation was liberated.

Of the 22 men Peter had sworn in as ministers on 27 March 1941, two were killed during the German invasion and another five chose not go into exile. Džafer Kulenović of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization switched sides and went over to the Ustashe, urging Bosnian Muslims to join the Croats in killing Serbs.

The Zagreb Synagogue was the main place of worship for the Jewish community of Zagreb in modern-day Croatia. It was constructed in 1867 in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within the Austrian Empire, was used until it was demolished by the fascist authorities in 1941 in the Axis-alignedIndependent State of Croatia; the Moorish Revivalsynagogue, designed after the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna, was located on modern-day Praška Street. It has been the only purpose-built Jewish house of worship in the history of the city, it was one of the city's most prominent public buildings, as well as one of the most esteemed examples of synagogue architecture in the region. Since the 1980s, plans have been made to rebuild the synagogue in its original location. Due to various political circumstances limited progress has been made. Major disagreements exist between the government and Jewish organizations as to how much the latter should be involved in decisions about the reconstruction project, including proposed design and character of the new building.

Encouraged by the 1782 Edict of Tolerance of Emperor Joseph II, Jews first permanently settled in Zagreb in the late eighteenth century, founded the Jewish community in 1806. In 1809 the Jewish community had a rabbi, by 1811 it had its own cemetery; as early as 1833, the community was permitted to buy land for construction of a synagogue, but did not have sufficient money to finance one at the time. By 1855, the community had grown to 700 members and, on October 30 of that year, the decision was made to build a new Jewish synagogue; the construction committee, appointed in 1861, selected and purchased a parcel of land at the corner of Maria Valeria Street and Ban Jelačić Square, the central town square. However, a new urban planning scheme of 1864 reduced the area available for construction, the community decided to buy another parcel of 1,540 square metres in Maria Valeria Street 80 metres south of the original location. Franjo Klein, a Vienna-born Zagreb architect, was commissioned to build the synagogue.

Klein, a representative of romantic historicism, modeled the building on the Viennese Leopoldstädter Tempel, a Moorish Revival temple designed by Ludwig Förster. It became a prototype for synagogue design in Central Europe. Zagreb Synagogue used the developed round arch style, but did not adopt Förster's early oriental motifs; the composition of the main facade, with its dominant drawn-out and elevated projection and the two symmetrical lower lateral parts, reflects the internal division into three naves. At ground-floor level, the front was distinguished by the three-arch entrance and bifora, whereas the first-floor level had a high triforium with an elevated arch and the quadrifoliate rosettes on the staircases; the synagogue occupied the greater part of the plot. It receded from the street regulation-line in accordance with the rule still enforced in Austria–Hungary, prohibiting non-Catholic places of worship from having a public entrance from the street; the synagogue had a wider and higher central nave and two narrower naves.

Construction was completed the following year. The synagogue was consecrated on September 27, 1867, a ceremony attended by representatives of city and regional authorities, Zagreb public figures, many citizens, it was the first prominent public building in Zagreb's lower town, its architecture and scale aroused general admiration and praise. With the new synagogue, an organ was introduced into religious service; the small minority of Orthodox Jews found this change to be intolerable, they began to hold their services separately, in rented rooms. In the 1880 earthquake, the synagogue was repaired the following year. Due to immigration from Hungary and Moravia, the Jewish population of Zagreb grew in size: from 1,285 members in 1887 to 3,237 members in 1900, to 5,970 members in 1921; the synagogue became too small to accommodate the needs of the ever-growing community. In 1921 a renovation was undertaken to increase the number of available seats. A 1931 plan to increase the capacity to 944 seats was abandoned.

A central heating system was installed in 1933. During the 1941 collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under the Axis invasion in the April War, the Independent State of Croatia was created, it was ruled by the extreme nationalist Ustaša regime. The Ustaša started with the systematic persecution of the Jews, modeled after the Nazi Germany approach, at times more brutal. Racial laws were introduced, Jewish property was confiscated, the Jews were subjected to mass arrests and deportations to death camps in Croatia and abroad. In October 1941, the newly installed mayor of Zagreb, Ivan Werner, issued a decree ordering the demolition of the Praška Street synagogue, ostensibly because it did not fit into the city's master plan; the demolition began on October 10, 1941, proceeding so as not to damage the adjacent buildings. The whole process was photographed for propaganda purposes, the photographs were shown to the public at an antisemitic exhibition first held in Zagreb, it was shown in Dubrovnik, Sarajevo and Zemun, as an illustration of the "solution of the Jewish question in Croatia".

A fragment of the film footage of the demolition was discovered five decades by the film director Lordan Zafranović during research for his 1993 documentary feature, Decline of the Century: Testimony of L. Z.. This footage was shown in Mira Wolf's documentary, The Zagr

The Serbs are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group that formed in the Balkans. The majority of Serbs inhabit the nation state of Serbia, as well as the disputed territory of Kosovo, the neighboring countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, they form significant minorities in North Slovenia. There is a large Serb diaspora in Western Europe, outside Europe there are significant communities in North America and Australia; the Serbs share many cultural traits with the rest of the peoples of Southeast Europe. They are predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christians by religion; the Serbian language is official in Serbia, co-official in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, is spoken by the plurality in Montenegro. The modern identity of Serbs is rooted in traditions. In the 19th century, the Serbian national identity was manifested, with awareness of history and tradition, medieval heritage, cultural unity, despite living under different empires. Three elements, together with the legacy of the Nemanjić dynasty, were crucial in forging identity and preservation during foreign domination: the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Serbian language, Kosovo Myth.

When the Principality of Serbia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, Orthodoxy became crucial in defining the national identity, instead of language, shared by other South Slavs. The tradition of slava, the family saint feast day, is an important ethnic marker of Serb identity, is regarded their most significant and most solemn feast day; the origin of the ethnonym is unclear. Genetic studies on Serbs show that they have close affinity with the rest of the Balkan peoples, those within former Yugoslavia. Serbia's people are among the tallest in the world, after Montenegro and the Netherlands, with an average male height of 1.82 metres. Slavs settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. Up until the late 560s their activity was raiding, crossing from the Danube, though with limited Slavic settlement through Byzantinefoederati colonies; the Danube and Sava frontier was overwhelmed by large-scale Slavic settlement in the late 6th and early 7th century. What is today central Serbia was an important geo-strategical province, through which the Via Militaris crossed.

This area was intruded by barbarians in the 5th and 6th centuries. The numerous Slavs assimilated the descendants of the indigenous population; the history of the early medieval Serbian Principality is recorded in the 10th-century work De Administrando Imperio, which describes the Serbs as a people living in Roman Dalmatia, subordinate to the Byzantine Empire. Numerous small Serbian states were created, chiefly under Vlastimorović and Vojislavjević dynasties, located in modern Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. With the decline of the Serbian state of Duklja in the late 11th century, "Raška" separated from it and replaced it as the most powerful Serbian state. Prince Stefan Nemanja conquered the neighbouring territories of Kosovo and Zachlumia; the Nemanjić dynasty ruled over Serbia until the 14th century. Nemanja's older son, Stefan Nemanjić, became Serbia's first recognized king, while his younger son, founded the Serbian Orthodox Church in the year 1219, became known as Saint Sava after his death.

Over the next 140 years, Serbia expanded its borders, from numerous minor principalities, reaching to a unified Serbian Empire. Its cultural model remained Byzantine, despite political ambitions directed against the empire; the medieval power and influence of Serbia culminated in the reign of Stefan Dušan, who ruled the state from 1331 until his death in 1355. Ruling as Emperor from 1346, his territory included Macedonia, northern Greece and all of modern Albania; when Dušan died, his son Stephen Uroš V became Emperor. With Turkish invaders beginning their conquest of the Balkans in the 1350s, a major conflict ensued between them and the Serbs, the first major battle was the Battle of Maritsa, in which the Serbs were defeated. With the death of two important Serb leaders in the battle, with the death of Stephen Uroš that same year, the Serbian Empire broke up into several small Serbian domains; these states were ruled by feudal lords, with Zeta controlled by the Balšić family, Raška, Kosovo and northern Macedonia held by the Branković family and Lazar Hrebeljanović holding today's Central Serbia and a portion of Kosovo.

Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation, originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the …

The Serbs are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group that formed in the Balkans. The majority of Serbs inhabit the nation state of Serbia, as well as the disputed territory of Kosovo, and the neighboring countries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and …

The Persecution of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, also known as the Genocide of the Serbs included the extermination, expulsion and forced religious conversion of hundreds of thousands ethnic Serbs by the genocidal policies of the …

The Romani, colloquially known as Gypsies or Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally itinerant, living mostly in Europe and the Americas and originating from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab regions of modern-day …

A Romani wagon pictured in 2009 in Grandborough Fields in Warwickshire (Grandborough Fields Road is a popular spot for travelling people)

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total …

The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II fascist puppet state of Germany and Italy. It was established in parts of occupied Yugoslavia on 10 April 1941, after the …

Message calling on Jews and Serbs to surrender their weapons at the risk of being severely condemned.

An antisemitic poster in Zagreb.

PoglavnikAnte Pavelic (left) with Italy's DuceBenito Mussolini (right) in Rome, Italy on 18 May 1941, during the ceremony of Italy's recognition of Croatia as a sovereign state under official Italian protection, and to agree upon Croatia's borders with Italy.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina, and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe, located within the Balkan Peninsula. Sarajevo is the capital and largest …

The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive military alliance that was eventually joined by Hungary (20 …

Japanese version of the Tripartite Pact, 27 September 1940

The Japanese embassy in Berlin clad in the flags of the three signatories of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940

Official protocol of Bulgaria's accession into the Tripartite Pact

China's declaration of war against Germany and Italy (9 December 1941) was made on the grounds that the Tripartite Pact banded the allies together "into a block of aggressor states working closely together to carry out their common program of world conquest and domination".

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state in Southeast Europe and Central Europe that existed from 1929 until 1941, during the interwar period and beginning of World War II. — The preliminary kingdom was …

Peter II was the last King of Yugoslavia, reigning from 1934 to 1945. He was the last reigning member of the Karađorđević dynasty which came to prominence in the early 20th century. — Early life — Peter II was born on 6 September …

Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the …

The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, was a German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was put forward in "Führer Directive No. 25", which Adolf Hitler issued on 27 …

Illustration of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia

The goods station at Mönichkirchen was Hitler's headquarters, Frühlingssturm, during the invasion.

Hungarian chief-of-staff Werth was a leading proponent and key planner of Hungary's involvement in the invasion.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens …

Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby …

The Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp and administrative …

Former prisoner reception centre; the building on the far left with the row of chimneys was the camp kitchen.

The Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. — The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various security police agencies …

The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement, commonly known as Ustaše, was a Croatian fascist, racist, ultranationalist and terrorist organization, active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. Its …

The signing of the Tripartite Pact by Germany, Japan, and Italy on 27 September 1940 in Berlin. Seated from left to right are the Japanese ambassador to Germany Saburō Kurusu, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Galeazzo Ciano, and Adolf Hitler.

Ante Pavelić was a Croatian general and military dictator who founded and headed the fascist ultranationalist organization known as the Ustaše in 1929 and governed the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian …

Stara Gradiška was one of the most notorious concentration and extermination camps in Croatia during World War II, mainly due to the crimes committed there against women and children. The camp was specially constructed for women and children of Serb, Jew, and Romani ethnicity. It was established by …

Syrmia is a fertile region of the Pannonian Plain in Europe, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. The majority of Syrmia is located in the Srem and South Bačka districts of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. A smaller area around …

The Jadovno concentration camp was a concentration and extermination camp in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. Commanded by Juco Rukavina, it was the first of twenty-six concentration camps in the NDH during the war. Established in a secluded area about 20 kilometres (12 …

The Zagreb Synagogue was the main place of worship for the Jewish community of Zagreb in modern-day Croatia. It was constructed in 1867 in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within the Austrian Empire, and was used until it was demolished by the fascist authorities in …

Andrija Artuković was a Croatian lawyer, politician, and senior member of the Croatian nationalist and fascist Ustaše organisation, who held the Interior and Justice portfolios in the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država …

Dušan Simović was a Serbian general who served as Chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia. — Life and career — Simović was born on 28 October 1882 in Kragujevac. He attended elementary …